... and this is why I don't use bluetooth on anything.
this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2025
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Every spy in my vicinity is going to be dancing to The Meters - Cissy Strut.
A fine choice though.
Shitty Beatles & the meters.. I'll follow you anywhere
Even if these attacks seem frightening on paper, the ERNW researchers are reassuring: many conditions must be met to carry out an eavesdropping attack. First and foremost, the attacker(s) must be within range of the Bluetooth short-range radio; an attack via the Internet is not possible. They must also carry out several technical steps without attracting attention. And they must have a reason to eavesdrop on the Bluetooth connection, which, according to the discoverers, is only conceivable for a few target people. For example, celebrities, journalists or diplomats, but also political dissidents and employees in security-critical companies are possible targets.
I guess they didn’t point this out because it’s kind of obvious, but it sounds like they also have to actually be on to be exploited. So it’s not going to turn on and start listening to you at least. Definitely concerning, but I’m still gonna be listening to my audio books and podcasts with my wireless headphones.
A speaker i have from bose is always on and "sleeping" and can be connected to from the phone no matter what i do, drains the fucking battery and when i want to use it finaly its dead.. wouldnt be surprised if some headphones worked the same..
A smart outlet (and running home assistant) will solve that problem.
It sounds like they have some kind of wake function that it’s always listening for? I don’t think that’s a common feature in headphones just because of the battery drain, but they’re always chucking useless features on electronics so I’m sure some are floating around out there. I doubt it’s something you wouldn’t know about unless they were secondhand, though.
It's BLE - Bluetooth Low Energy.
Basically devices with BLE can listen for a wake-up command and turn on, similar to the "magic packet" of wake on Ethernet.
Super convenient for "find my device" applications, also nice to be able to connect and activate the device without having to press a power button like a peasant.
It also means that most devices with BLE end up flat within a month. I had a speaker with BLE and had to deliberately download a much older version of the Android partner app to turn it off, as they dropped the option to do so in later versions for "convenience". With BLE on it would be flat in about 6 weeks regardless of whether I'd used it or not , which really ruined ad-hoc usage for me.
They said I was mad when they removed the headphone jack - well who’s mad now??! AHAHahahahaaaaaaahhhhcrap it’s me.
I’m still mad. Fuckers.
So how do you determine if your headphones have the vulnerable chip in them?
According to the article, headphones using a Bluetooth SoC manufactured by Airoha may be vulnerable. So, need to find if your headphones use their SoC.
You will need to do some research on your headphones, I guess.
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You can get/make your own archive link by going to archive.ph and entering the article's URL.
Here's the link for this one: https://archive.ph/wUAQn
I was hoping this would allow me to take over Bluetooth speakers that people use while skiing and replace their music with a PSA about how no one wants to hear their music
Most annoying people on the mountain
Or public transit. Or public parks. Or grocery stores.
Yesss. Find that sploit and please let it never be fixable. I didn't download a copy of The Wheels On The Bus for nothing.
Alright now how do I test this out
This is why I chose to get a Corsair Virtuoso, which has a removable microphone.
Gonna set up my tablet to play Capital over bluetooth 24/7. Enjoy the theory skinwalkers
My Redmi buds 5 had a firmware update available for me in the app. It could be an older one though, their patch notes suck and don't even say the date. v4.3.8.8